After removing the engine, fuel tank, exhaust, radiator, and all the other things that make an internal combustion engine work, [Kurt] installed a high power motor, controller and 72 lithium phosphate batteries weighing in at over 500 pounds. He’s put over 300 miles on the car in the last few months while working out the kinks, but now he’s finally gotten the bugs out of the system allowing him to take it up to some relatively high speeds.

Already [Kurt] has taken his new ride to 100 mph and done a little bit of range testing that told him he should expect around 40 miles per charge in his new ride. It’s not exactly what he hoped, but more than enough for a few trips around town while riding in style.

After the break is a video [Kurt]’s first test drive of his electric Porsche.

Post navigation

63 thoughts on “Porsche 911 made electric”

Are all these EV prototypes actually street legal in the states?
I know for sure that in Italy (and the in the rest of Europe) you’d have to get it inspected, authorized and registered as single model prototypes, a process which involves shelling out a lot of cash

In UK there’s no problem,Sweden is different,Spain is different,Iceland is different,Greece is Different,etc.

And in some places they only check for wear on brakes,lights,seat belts,serious rust,tires,emissions,noise,such things.

For example,at the Greek KTEO Inspection for non heavy commercial vehicles no one is going to bother and spew a word if you have a home made body kit or decided one day to weld a 5 meters tall cargo compartment on your Pickup’s bed.

If you turn a Sedan into a Convertible you just need to register it as Convertible and pass the regular inspection and have in hand a mech’s sign and a simple sketch on how’s been cut.

For altering vital main vehicle characteristics like turning a Sedan into a Truck it needs to get inspected and get prototype approval.

But no one offers such service so go ahead and turn your Jeep to a Monster Truck,as far as the VIN and Engine Number is the same no one is going to bother further.

Not really, I live in Italy and I guarantee I am not even legally allowed to swap the headlight of my bike to another model even if they are actually approved and road legal.
Not to speak about any other kind of veichle mod.

You’ve got a quite romantic way of seeing how does things work in the south.
Maybe in southern Italy, where people do not even have car insurance and do whatever they want (like 3 underage boys on a scooter, no helmet, in the middle of a city chatting with police officers – true story), but the north is way different.

Much better life quality and people,and places,but as the years are passing up there chances are someone can wake up one day sad and realize he wants to start running with ripped clothes down the street and have fun,and can’t.

In the UK, you just re register it as an EV and take it for a regular annual inspection. You may also get called for in for a vehicle identity check. As an EV it becomes tax free. Obviously it has to be insured as a modified vehicle which may or may not push up the cost. On a Porsche it would probably make it cheaper.

Who else wanted to see him give it the beans up the street? Those 11″ motors are supposed to have something like 500ft.lbs of torque providing the battery is up to it.

Yes. Many places in the US don’t have any inspections. Most of the other places only have emissions inspections which means not really a problem for this car.
The state I live in used to have vehicle inspections. When they stopped they monitored the accident rate and it was unchanged so they killed it. In other states any saftey inspection will be things like do the lights, horn, wipers, brakes, and seat belts work.

That’s quite interesting. In the UK, they’ve just introduced (or they’re talking about introducing) testing (MOT) exemption for vehicles made before 1965. It’ll be interesting to see if that has any effect on accident statistics.

I know guys there in US 30 Years with Rat Rods and other death traps and customs that have been cut and welded amateurly everywhere who absolutely never had an accident with them.

Yet at the same time,Germany with the most restrictive Vehicle Inspection which prohibides you from even putting an Antenna on the roof,has one of the HIGHEST Vehicular Accident and Fatalities rate in Europe.

Perhaps you’re mixing up cause and effect. The inspections are there because otherwise the accident rates would be even worse, while the rat rods don’t need to get inspected because they’re mostly driven on empty country roads instead of German autobahns where a simple mistake can end up with a kilometer long pileup.

In Miami, Florida USA there’s so many cars missing parts it’s funny :) One missing a door, another a window, the other with a trunk crushed into 45 degree angles… and no testing whatsoever on safety. Believe me, your car isn’t going to save you from an uininsured immigrant who thinks we play by the same rules that other central american countries live by lol Over there i’ve seen 15 year old kids with 2L bottles of liquor half empty in their hands while driving cars and motorcycles on very uneven roads like it’s all good.

@truebassb I think you are mistaken with your understanding of “Rat Rod”. These are typically considered to be customized older chassis vehicles (ex. ’32 Ford) with extremely oversized engines. Many are capable of speeds in excess of 270kph but do not have the braking or steering capabilities of Dad’s BMW and definitely do not have any electronic assistance like traction control or ABS. Keep in mind, American hot rod/racing culture originated with bootlegers running moonshine, and these vehicles HAD to carry hundreds of pounds of alcohol and reach speed nearing or exceeding 100mph on DIRT roads. The only reason these cars are not more lethal is the drivers, as being custom they are generally built by their drivers, and even a teen with no experience does not want to wreck a ride with thousands of hours of their blood and sweat in it. Perhaps the understanding that these cars can kill you in a heartbeat helps too, this is made immediately obvious the first time one’s right foot is pushed to the floor. With “normal” cars this is not so obvious.

No offense Intended at all but i hope you don’t believe a sane human can reach 100mph in a Rat Rod and on a DIRT road.

You gotta drink a liquor house to go fast with one sitting on a single pair of leaf springs with the wheels placed higher than the body with your butt on a plate on the floor and every bump on the road hitting the frame and making it jump.

Long story short,your body has a 35-40mph max on a highway with these,the driver’s experience has nothing to do with this,trust me,no one will go faster.

Unless you speak about well made Hot Rods which in most cases they ride better than the original vehicle.

The Inspections in Germany are not as bad as most people here believe…
It is possible and not too complicated to get an homebuild electric vehicle registered for example this one: http://e-vw.blogspot.de/
There are a lot of similar projects so it’s far from impossible. It might be costly because if you have a newer vehicle ( build after 1990 or something) you might be forced to do EMV tests that could cost quite some money….

Other european countries have much more restrictions. In Austria you even have to change your care registration if you change the color. And in Spain you were not allowed to change ANYTHING on the car etc…

The problem with Germany and other countries with TÜV and others is more complicated.

For example in UK you can make your own metal fab on a car and put other seats and lights from another vehicle aswell as custom wiring and you pass SVA where they check if all these are safe as a TOTAL by the opinion of one single experienced Mech Tech and the SVA Booklet,with his Sign like it’s a personal matter for him,right away,try that with TÜV and you’d be running around them for months rejecting you for one screw being screwed like that and this thing being 0.2mm unsymetrical.

I think everywhere except a few places in US you gotta change the registered car color.

That’s the least of the problems,for example in Greece you are dropping off by the Department and filling a form stating the color changing,after that they send you a new registration.

50 State, 50 sets of regulations although several may have some specific regulations in common. Here in Kansas we don’t have an annual safety inspection for personal passenger vehicle or light trucks. Some years ago Kansas required a safety inspection every time a vehicle was sold, but I don’t think that lasted 20 years. I could tell you a car I would build here in Kansas may not pass an inspection in California, and you may be tempted to say that’s California for you, but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t take the same car the Florida or Texas and have it pass their respective inspections to be able to tag and drive it either.

I live in Minnesota and I DO have to have the car inspected before I am able to renew the license, however, they do provide me a 1 year license and grace period before the inspection. The inspection is $30 USD + $6 for processing fee. I’ve been told by other car builders the inspectors only want to see the receipts for the items I purchased to ensure that they were not stolen and I paid taxes on the purchases!

In the UK, if you make a change to the frame you have to have an SVA test which goes over everything. On my diesel bike conversion, I only had to inform the DVLA (gov body for car registration etc) that I had changed the engine, and provide a letter from a local mechanic that confirmed this. This was free.

I am sure the procedure is very similar in the UK for an electric vehicle, not sure about anywhere else.

I would be interested to see how he fixed the auto box missing the engine. I cant seem to ascertain that from the blog post, but I know on Mercedes’s at least, that they rely heavily on information from the engine over the canbus to adjust shifting etc.

Unfortunately, they are making changes soon which will mean different levels of changes based on different modifications, so gearbox counts as one point, engine as another etc etc, depending on how many points add up, you must have a different level of testing.

I notice gear changes take a fair amount of time, I’m guessing it’s an auto box and with the flywheel not spinning all the time (electric motor and all that) this means you have to press the accelerator (gas pedal) for a few seconds to get the gearbox to change gear.

I tend to agree that this particular porsche was probably a poor choice. I would have picked an older-(MUCH LIGHTER) model 911, (pre-1973), or a 914. Otherwise, the porsche is a great candidate overall, because of the design/layout, you can put batteries in front and back, and have a better weight distribution. (I know that’s the case for pretty much ANY sedan – not so much for the sports-coupes out there. . . )

But just knowing the layout of this car; I think I also would have ditched the automatic transmission – found one with a manual. There is too much engine-control integration between the ECU and the automatic.

I don’t know what Tesla’s doing, but their original design didn’t use a transmission, (and now they have a 2-speed gearbox, I think?). The motors are so torquey, a transmission isn’t really needed. More room for batteries.

Tesla originally intended for a two speed robotic gearbox, but they couldn’t get it to work because the company they ordered the gearbox from fudged it and it kept breaking all the time. So now they have no gearbox, it’s just direct drive with a reduction gear. Bad choice for top speed and efficiency, but better than nothing.

+1
i’m also rather senitive to high pitched noises, this would drive me crazy.
Already enough annoyance when i play with RC type speed controllers, i can’t imagine what such a big amp thing generates …

Walking down a dark alley, suddenly it’s filled with light, you turn aroun dbut can’t see anthing because it’s blinding you, all of a sudden you hear the crunching of gravel and an unearthly loud SCCCCCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

cool but only 40 miles ? damn i guess he could put a small ICE that powers a generator and get more milage… but wait wouldn’t it be easier to just keep the original ICE and use it to power the car? /trolling

Two reasons why the range is only 40 miles. 1. Big, wide, stick, high rolling resistance tires. 2. The transmission. EVs need little in the way of a transmission because electric motors, like steam engines, develop peak torque instantly. Take a Porsche manual box and remove all the gears except first and direct drive and reverse. Could leave in an overdrive gear if it has that for freeway driving.

It’s pretty easy to convert a car to electric. The simpler, the better. Manual transmissions are best, and you don’t even need a clutch. (Mine doesn’t have one.)
I even made an instructional DVD teaching others how they can build an electric car. Total budget for mine was $1300.

As for the motor controller whine…. Several manufacturer’s controllers make a sound like that, and everyone hates it. My car is using an “Open Revolt” motor controller, which was a crowd-sourced/open-source group project organized through Ecomodder.com. One thing we made sure of was that it is dead silent. The controller works great!